Dinners firm damned

The extent of the school meals fiasco is shown today in a series of emails and letters obtained by the Standard. The correspondence highlights "appalling" hygiene and the use of out-of-date food in schools supplied by Scolarest, the largest private provider of dinners.

It is published as Scolarest bids to renew a £7.5million contract serving children in 48 schools across Camden, and will make depressing reading for celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who lives in the borough and whose campaign against unhealthy meals turned the issue into a political one.

The letters reveal how Camden council inspectors found:

Rancid lard was used in "disgusting" crumbles even though cooks had asked for it to be destroyed a month earlier.

A tray of burnt biscuits hidden by a "deceitful layer of good ones".

Kitchens at one school so filthy that the head cleaned them herself.

Eggs discovered a month past their use-by date at a school where meals were prepared a day early, against council rules.

Almonds two years out of date and drinks five months out of date.

Camden council is stuck with the contract until next April. At one school it has begun withholding payment to Scolarest following parents' refusal to pay for meals. But despite complaints over two years, Scolarest has been fined only once - ?400 for failing an inspection at a primary school.

Oliver clashed with Scolarest in his Channel 4 programme Jamie's School Dinners. The chef said: "Council-led services are better and private firms shouldn't be allowed to feed kids like animals."

Camden council says it may bring the service in-house next year. A spokesman added: "These issues arose during monitoring by officers, or refer to complaints by schools, and many date from last year. In each case, the council called for Scolarest to address the problem, which it did."

However, the letters and emails are as recent as this March. A letter to Scolarest dated 3 March from Ian Patterson, the council's head of property and contracts services, criticises the firm for meals at Holy Trinity and St Silas Primary School.

It says: "Over the last year the school has suffered shortages of food, poor quality of food being served, cleanliness and organisational failings ... we can no longer tolerate this ongoing level of poor service."

The firm said: "Scolarest takes issues of health and food safety very seriously and moves to address any concerns raised by its clients and customers at the earliest opportunity."